Out of our league: England v Germany at Wembley
Gareth Soutgate (r) and Joaquin Low (l) PA)
On the day of the 1966 World Cup final, the great Scottish footballer, Denis Law, went to play golf. He couldn’t bear the thought of watching England, the old rivals, win the World Cup at Wembley.
In the 1960s Scottish fans could still think of themselves as England’s rivals. It was the day of players like Law, Jim Baxter, Billy Bremner and Charlie Cooke. Fifty years on, Scotland are out of their depth. English fans looked on bemused as “the Tartan Army” invaded London. Now there are hardly any Scottish players who play for top Premier League or European teams. Unlike Wales, with Gareth Bale (Real Madrid) and Aaron Ramsey (Juventus), the Scots don’t have a single world-class player. It’s true England played abysmally and Scotland drew 0-0 at Wembley, but they duly failed to make the first knock-out round, well-beaten by the Czechs and Croatia.
England will now play Germany on Tuesday and already pundits and former players are talking of the great rivalry, 1966 and all that. Germans must look on as bemused as English fans did when the Scots sang of the oldest rivalry in football. England are not in the same league as Germany and, except for a few victories, haven’t been since the 1970 World Cup defeat in Mexico.
Worse still, this year England has arguably their weakest team in decades. How many world-class players does England have? Harry Kane won the Golden Boot in the 2018 World Cup, but he hasn’t scored in three group matches and, worse still, looks slow and out of touch. Maguire and Jordan Henderson, England’s best defender and midfielder, are still recovering from bad injuries. Sterling and Rashford have averaged one goal in four games for England, Jadon Sancho one in six. Compare this with Giroud and Griezmann who have scored close to a goal every two games, Ronaldo who has scored 109 goals in fewer than 200 games for Portugal and Lukaku who has scored more than 60 goals in fewer than 100 games for Belgium. Those are the figures of world-class strikers and Kane is the only English striker who comes close.
England have no centre backs like Ferdinand, Sol Campbell or Martin Keown, no full backs like Ashley Cole or Gary Neville, no midfielders like Beckham, Gerrard or Lampard, and only one striker like Shearer or Rooney. You can almost see Harry Kane’s sales price falling every match.
Then there are the managers. Gareth Southgate has not yet won an international tournament. It is true that England got to the semi-finals in the 2018 World Cup, but only because they beat Tunisia, Panama, Colombia (on penalties after extra-time) and Sweden. When they played top teams like Belgium and Croatia, they lost. When Southgate leaves the England job, which top club will hire him? The only Premier League team he’s managed is Middlesbrough. None of the top four Premier League clubs has an English manager.
Joachim Löw was in charge when Germany were runner-ups to the great Spanish team in the 2008 Euros, came third in the 2010 World Cup, were beaten semi-finalists in the 2012 Euros and won the 2014 World Cup. More important, under Low, they played exhilarating football, especially with his young team in South Africa and Brazil.
And the German team? Manuel Neuer is one of Europe’s greatest goalkeepers, Gundogan from Manchester City, Kimmich and Thomas Mueller from Bayern and Toni Kroos from Real Madrid are hugely experienced, Kimmich and Gundogan with more than 50 caps, the others with more than 100.
Admittedly, Germany are not who they were. In 2018 Germany were knocked out in the group stage for the first time since 1938 and in 2020 lost 6-0 to Spain. This time, in the group stage they lost to France and could only draw with Hungary. They were just a few minutes from being knocked out in the group stage for the second successive tournament. Their biggest names are ageing fast and Löw’s successor will have to completely rebuild the squad for the 2022 World Cup in Qatar.
But England have only scored twice in three group matches. The squad is weak throughout, especially in midfield. The reason is clear. The top English clubs can buy the best players from Africa, Europe and South America. Raheem Sterling looks better playing for Manchester City when he’s playing with de Bruyne and Bernardo Silva than with Kalvin Phillips and Declan Rice, and Rashford looks better up front getting the ball from Pogba and Fernandez. This isn’t a matter of individuals. It’s a structural problem. No wonder France, Portugal and Germany were all so keen to draw England for Tuesday’s game. Any of them would have won. The Germans, lucky as always, will play at Wembley. If England win it will be the biggest upset in their history for many years.
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